Twelve Dozen Red Roses
by ThePurpleKieen
Summary: G1. One flower once is a secret admirer. A dozen roses that find her even after she's gone away to college is a stalker. Carly and her mystery stalker through the years.


1. 17th Birthday

When Carly turned seventeen, Spike took her out for ice cream – or rather, she drove them, but he insisted on paying. Bumblebee, who was still waylaid in medbay following the most recent skirmish with the Decepticons, would have taken them had he been sure that they would not also be targets of Ratchet's ire when the medic inevitably found out that Bumblebee was not following the "bedrest" order – or whatever the equivalent of bedrest was for Autobots.

It was the fact that they had a normal car waiting in the parking lot that allowed the mystery to begin. Because when they got back to Carly's convertible – which wasn't a robot that joined them for ice cream or could tell them who had left it there – they found a bouquet of twelve bright red roses resting in the driver's seat.

Carly looked to Spike, who shrugged, just as confused as her. "Hey, I barely have money for ice cream," he mumbled, a little embarrassed, while Carly just wondered if she and her car were being confused with someone else and their car.

* * *

2. Valentine's Day 1986

By the end of the summer, Carly forgot about the flowers in her car on her birthday. But the mystery reared its ugly head and the plot thickened that February.

She'd told Spike "no gifts" for Valentine's Day and then warned Bumblebee to make sure her edict was enforced. So on the morning of the 14th, the three things on Carly's mind were college applications, a chemistry test and whether or not Jazz would actually go through with that plan of his to throw a V-Day party for the 'bots that would subsequently give both Red Alert and Prowl blown processors.

That was until she stepped into homeroom and immediately found herself confronted by her teacher. "Carly, I don't suppose you know how this happened?" she asked, pointing to Carly's desk. Carly stared, suddenly flashing back to her birthday and her car and roses, because there on her desk were a dozen red roses. "I found those there when I came in this morning," her teacher continued slowly, measuring Carly's reaction to her words. "When I unlocked the door this morning."

"So… what you're saying is that someone broke into a school to leave flowers on a random desk in a random classroom – because I'm not dating a delinquent and nobody I know is stupid enough to think that's a good idea."

Well, the twins might, but since flowers could be interpreted as a gesture of niceness and Sunstreaker and Sideswipe didn't do "nice," they were out as culprits. Plus, Ironhide threatened them with dismemberment and reconstruction by Ratchet into toasters if they involved Carly in any of their crazy, so this was definitely not the twins' handiwork. If a wall had been ripped off of the school, that would be a different story.

"And that's what I would have said, except that it's got your name on the tag."

Indeed, printed as though by a typewriter, there was one word: _Carly._

* * *

3. 18th Birthday

Carly honestly felt very bad for Red Alert. He drove himself to processor breakdowns on a near-daily basis, tirelessly making sure that the _Ark_ was safe, and the other Autobots made fun of him for it. Granted, his abundant paranoia and abrasive personality made it al l too easy – but still. And then, Carly just felt worse that it was her stalker that had sent Red over the edge to his latest panic attack.

_Stalker, _because stalkers were the ones that found out that she spent her afternoons and weekends hanging out with the Autobots. There was a line to be drawn between "my car and my desk in homeroom" and "the _Ark," _and that line separated secret admirers from stalkers. Another line marked where "average stalker" ended and "obsessive stalker" began, and this stalker sat firmly in the latter category, because obsessive was the only word that could describe the act of delivering flowers to the doorstep of a girl and her giant alien robot friends that could easily squish a human being.

Poor Red thought it was a Decepticon attack, before Brawn, who had wandered out to the entrance of the _Ark _after the warning alarm had been tripped for some intelligent reason, commed down that there was no need for the panic, there were no Decepticons. Red remained convinced that this was a Deecpticon plot, ignoring Bumblebee's rational arguments that A) Decepticons and flowers do not mix and B) the Decepticons also did not keep track of the names of the Autobots' human friends, and the flowers were specifically addressed to Carly. Which was creepy, but not malicious. Not really. Maybe. But not in the way Decepticons were malicious.

Red refused to listen to reason and Carly humored him by summoning Wheeljack, who proceeded to blow up a dozen red roses in a spectacular explosion that he called Carly's birthday present from himself and also every mad scientist ever.

Even a creepy obsessive stalker couldn't take away from the fact that Carly's realization that her eighteenth birthday was definitely best spent the way she spent every day: with the Autobots.

* * *

4. Valentine's Day 1987

Obsessive creepy stalker got even more obsessed and creepy just when Carly was sure that she could be rid of this problem.

Twelve red roses showed up in a vase outside her dorm room. Twelve red roses followed her across the country to college and while the other girls in the hall gushed over the flowers, Carly called Spike, relayed the problem, and waited for an overprotective Ironhide to show up outside her window the next day.

Ultimately it was Skyfire – of all 'bots to make the cross-country trip, it was the scientist who never even left the lab – who ended up at MIT for a visit on the 15th, and he reminisced about Cybertron's academies (adding that he had wanted to see how similar human institutions were to Cybertronian ones and this occurrence provided a great excuse for it) while the two dissected twelve red roses, partly for entertainment and partly to see if maybe Red had been right the past summer and these were more than twelve normal roses.

They weren't.

* * *

5. Valentine's Day 1988

Skyfire came by to visit again 363 days later, on February 13th. Perceptor made the trip with him this time, just as eager as Skyfire last year to see what human schools looked like. Carly was grateful that it was they who showed up as preventative measures and not Ironhide, who could easily ruin every human relationship Carly had formed at MIT.

As it happened, the only reason that Ironhide _hadn't _come all the way out to Massachusetts was because he'd been injured in a recent battle, which still didn't stop the determined red 'bot until Ratchet went through with his common-but-previously-thought-to-be-empty threat of welding the patient to the berth. "Suffice to say, our medical officer is receiving a good deal more respect now than he previously did," Perceptor finished, trying and failing to hide a grin.

"Yeah, by the time when we'd left, the twins hadn't stepped out of line for a whole two days," Skyfire chimed in.

"That must be a record," Carly said, feeling only a twinge of guilt for laughing at the mental image of Ironhide's dilemma. "So what, Ironhide sent you two in his stead?" Even before the words left her mouth, Carly realized it was a stupid question: Ironhide didn't trust the scientists. (Perceptor and Wheeljack he only didn't trust with Carly, afraid that they would blow her up or melt her accidentally or when scientific curiosity got the better of them, while even the passage of years hasn't tempered his distrust of Skyfire.)

But the scientists' responses surprised her. "Actually, yeah, Skyfire admittered, sounding as though he knew what Carly was thinking and expected her to disbelieve his answer. "Percy and I were planning a visit anyway, and then – "

"Ironhide requested of me that we embark on our travels around this time of year," Perceptor continued, "because he wished to be here in an attempt to drive off your admirer once and for all, though if the subject of Ironhide's adverse attentions has previously come to the entrance of the _Ark _where a full crew of Autobots reside, I doubt that two of us will affect the outcome of these attempts in any way."

Perceptor wasn't quite right. The roses still showed up in the morning, but they found their way into Carly's first class, rather than to her door. The presence of Skyfire and Perceptor outside her dorm obviously had deterred her stalker – a little. Enough to take an extra precaution not to be caught, at any rate.

Now with this conclusive data, Ironhide would inevitably be here next year.

* * *

6. Valentine's Day 1989

Despite their eternal role as Carly's most hated enemies by virtue of their attacks on the Autobots and humanity, the Decepticons seemed to be just enough on her side every time Valentine's Day came around. This year, rather than injuring Ironhide – not critically, mind, Carly would rather have the 'bot as a constant overprotective shadow than dead – they stepped up their hit-and-runs on power plants and other energy sources along the West Coast, prompting a firm order from Optimus for Ironhide _not _to go running off to deal with the relatively minor issue of Carly's stalker.

(And Ironhide could accuse Optimus of not caring about their human friend's wellbeing, but that simply wasn't true. Optimus had spoken to Carly first and made sure that she didn't feel threatened by her stalker problem. Optimus may have had an intergalactic war to deal with, but he always took the time out to see if there was anything, however small, he could do for anyone. Carly wanted to nominate him for president if that were possible. Maybe once Megatron was defeated and the Autobots didn't need military leadership, except then there was still the issue of Optimus not being a "natural-born citizen." But she didn't think anything in the Constitution specified that the president had to be human. The Dinobots could probably qualify, then. Being built as alien robots by alien robots was definitely the same thing as being born there as a human, right?)

So Carly once again found a dozen roses sitting outside her door on the morning of February 14th.

This guy just didn't quit.

* * *

7. Valentine's Day 1990

The Decepticons were routed in a sound defeat three days before February 14th, Megatron and Soundwave both nearly left for dead by Starscream and saved only by the Constructicons decided that they weren't up for the whole "Starscream in command" deal. This freed up Ironhide for a visit to MIT, accompanied by Spike and Bumblebee to make sure that Ironhide didn't attack anyone who so much as looked at Carly – plus Spike was out of school now, working full-time in Sparkplug's mechanics shop and with the Autobots, so he could take a road trip in the middle of February without any repercussions.

Ironhide related the recent battle in excruciating detail, lamenting the fact that he hadn't managed to rip apart Ravage once and for all, though he was quite proud that he'd managed to take down Soundwave and the majority of his cassettes, even if it wasn't _quite _permanently. Carly felt that a major part of his decision to tell her all about the battle was the desire to broadcast to everyone listening that here was an Autobot who would mess them up if they messed with Carly.

This suspicion Ironhide confirmed when he took credit for the nonappearance of flowers for Carly anywhere on the morning of the 14th.

But about midnight that night, Carly awoke to a tapping on her window. She weighed her options for a long before seconds before curiosity overrode her better judgment and she slid out of bed and crept over to the window. She saw nothing outside but opened it anyway. There was a soft crinkle of paper and a bouquet dropped down from somewhere above. Carly's hands reflexively shot out and she caught the roses before they fell past her window to the ground. "Who are you?" she whispered up into the darkness, but she got no reply other than silence.

Ironhide was understandably livid the next morning.

* * *

8. Graduation

"I still can't believe you're not continuing to graduate school," said just about every one of Carly's professors, except for the two that had met Skyfire and Percy three years ago and understood why Carly would forsake further education and subsequently a high-paying career for the Autobots. Four years of only having Wheeljack's lab for three months, four years of no Bumblebee right there to play the confidant, four years of not having Perceptor around to expand her vocabulary, four years during which she learned to miss the twins' antics and actually called them for senior prank advice – four years away from the Autobots was enough.

"Let's go home," was the first thing she said when she returned to her friends after collecting her diploma. Spike and Sparkplug were there, along with Bumblebee, Ironhide and Perceptor, all brought by Skyfire.

Carly already had moved most of her things out of her dorm room, but she went back in one last time to gather up a final few possessions and say some goodbyes. When she got back into the room, she found a bouquet of roses on her now-empty desk. Next to them sat a small piece of paper, the first time a note with more than just her name written on it accompanied the flowers.

"_Congratulations, though there was never any doubt that you would succeed. You are brilliant – do not waste it."_

Sweet, but very _very_ creepy.

* * *

9. Valentine's Day 1991

The Battle of Saint Valentine, as Jazz named it, became a point of pride for the Autobots and of humiliation for the Decepticons. Carly objected to calling it a "battle" – skirmish, scuffle, confrontation, brawl, but nothing so big as a battle. For morale purposes, though, it was probably the biggest victory the Autobots ever won, with only half credit actually due to the Autobots.

Bumblebee drove Spike and Carly to dinner at an overly fancy restaurant where both felt completely out of their element until about halfway through the main course, when the Decepticons attacked. Or rather, it was just Soundwave's cassettes, Rumble and Frenzy, who picked a fight with Bumblebee as soon as they spotted him or he spotted them. Whatever it was, it resulted in Rumble throwing Bumblebee through the front wall of the restaurant.

Understandably, chaos broke loose. People started screaming and running away, Spike tried to direct them into the back rooms or kitchen of the restaurant, while Carly found herself running _towards _Bumblebee. The yellow MiniBot sprang back onto his feet and shooed her away right as Rumble crashed into him. Frenzy charged at the panicked crowd, laughing as they scattered in every direction.

Carly spun around in a circle, desperately seeking something to serve as a weapon. She grabbed the best option – a chair – and swung it at the back of Frenzy's head. The cassette staggered forward before finding his balance again and whipping around to face Carly. He froze, optics bright, like he hadn't expected his attacker to be a _human. _She took advantage of his distraction to jam a leg of the chair into the gap in his neck. Frenzy howled and tumbled to the ground, chair still lodged in his circuitry.

The room had mostly cleared of people by that point. Carly turned to look for Bumblebee – her friend took a heavy blow to the head from Rumble's fist before returning with a punch of his own. Taking advantage of the lull that she had now that Frenzy lay writhing on the ground, Carly pulled off her shoes as she half-ran, half-hopped over to assist Bumblebee. He mouthed something like "go away" at her, which served only to tip Rumble off to the fact that someone else was coming to Bumblebee's defense. It didn't give the cassette any advantage, though, because by the time he started to turn his head Carly jammed her heels into his exposed wiring.

Bumblebee smashed Rumble across the jaw, knocking him backwards – straight into Frenzy, who had just managed to stand up and dislodge the chair from his neck. They both tumbled to the ground and Bumblebee withdrew his rifle from subspace. He had taken two steps towards the two cassettes when Rumble growled, "C'mon, Frenz, let's scram." They jumped up in unison, pushed past a startled Bumblebee, and fled through the hole that they had created in the wall.

"That was stupid," Bumblebee said to Carly once they were sure the cassettes were gone for good. He grinned sheepishly and added, "But thank you."

Carly flinched at a loud sound, but it was applause. She and Bumblebee turned to see the patrons of the restaurant peering out of the back rooms, clapping for them. Spike wove his way through the crowd but stopped about a foot in front of Carly. There, in the midst of smashed tables and broken glass, he knelt and asked, "Carly, will you marry me?"

She gasped and clapped her hands over her mouth. "I know proposing on Valentine's Day isn't the most unique of ideas," he continued, "but this wasn't my original plan. Wheeljack and Dad are helping me build a ring and I planned on asking you once I finished that, but I realize now that I am never going to find someone as amazing as you anywhere else in the entire world. And I want to spend the rest of my crazy, crazy life with you and you handle it almost better than I do, and that's why I'm asking you now because I want you to know that and how lucky I am to have met you and…" Spike trailed off, an embarrassed grin on his face as he ran out of words, and Carly finally found her voice.

"Yes, yes, _yes! _Of course I'll marry you!"

And the restaurant broke into applause a second time.

Carly's later two realizations couldn't even _begin _to drag her down from her cloud nine because they were basically irrelevant in the grand scheme of her life. Realization Number One: Rumble basically stole her shoes. Realization Number Two: a dozen red roses waiting outside the _Ark _for her, half buried by the falling snow.

* * *

10. Wedding

Most didn't ever think that Carly, nerd Carly, brainiac Carly, engineer Carly, had the capacity to imagine such a girly thing as her future wedding. But when she was little, she remembered planning out her dream wedding. She didn't remember any specifics, but said dream definitely was not an elopement at the Central City Town Hall wearing grimy workshop jeans, the ends of her hair still scorched from today's backfired invention.

Carly, over the years, learned to embrace the unexpected.

"I hope you didn't have some grand huge plan that we all ruined," Spike said as they pushed open the doors of the building and stepped back out into the sunlight.

"Oh, I'm sure I did once, but not now, and who else can say that she has giant alien robots fighting over who gets to make her wedding plans?"

Spike laughed. "I think they just want to have a party."

"Well, we can let them, since we got all the official legal things out of the way now."

Even Bumblebee, who usually took on the role of voice of reason where humans were involved, hadn't been immune to the "wedding war" in which almost every Autobot had a very vocal opinion about and plan for aforementioned wedding of two of their resident humans. Carly and Spike, a few hours prior to their marriage, gave up hoping for order and snuck out of the _Ark _in the midst of Jazz and Blaster versus Everyone Else in the Battle of Music Choices. They took Carly's old convertible – she didn't even know how long it had been since she'd last driven it – out to the city and hypothesized that the end result of a shotgun-Vegas-elopement-wedding-like-thing would end the Autobot Civil War and get them to agree on one thing: party.

And just like one particular day so many years ago – Carly's seventeenth birthday, which very well may have been the last time she actually used her car – it was the fact that they took an actual car and not an Autobot as transportation that allowed the mystery of the stalker to perpetuate itself.

There in the driver's seat was a bouquet of one dozen red roses.

They spent about a minute stupidly staring at them before Carly reached into the car and found the tag around the stems. The words on it were typed in the same old typewriter font that she remembered.

"_Congratulations. As long as you are happy, I am."_

"How," Carly asked, holding it up for Spike to read, "does this guy _know? _Even the Autobots don't!"

"After all these years, still creepy as ever." Spike raised a skeptical eyebrow at the message. "Seruously, who actually leaves flowers for the object of his affection when she's getting married to some other guy?"

"Not just 'some other guy,' only the greatest guy in the entire universe," Carly interrupted, leaning in and kissing him.

"Well… okay."

"Really, Spike, no obsessive flower-dropping phantom compares to _you, _my best – human – friend and love of my life, and I don't know if you've ever felt inferior to this – this _weirdo's _devotion and obviously barrels of money, but forget him, even if he apparently can't forget about me."

Spike grinned and kissed her. "That counts as my wedding vows, I guess," she added, returning his grin.

"What – in sickness and in health, through creepy stalkers and alien civil wars?"

"'Till death from hopefully old age and not Decepticons do us part, I love this crazy life of ours."

* * *

11. Rescue

She was not invincible.

Growing up meant losing the foolish fearlessness that accompanied the naïve teenage belief that nothing could hurt her. She never realized that she was an adult before, because even after Daniel she spent her days in Wheeljack's lab inventing and experimenting and grownups didn't live the life that she did.

Carly was not invincible and when she found herself plucked up from the midst of the latest battlefield chaos by Megatron's hand, she couldn't reassure herself that Ironhide or Optimus or anyone would come and save her. She found it hard to believe that she would come out of this unscathed like she always did. Instead she thought of Daniel, of how she didn't want him to grow up without his mother. Of how she simply didn't want to die.

"I remember you," Megatron said to her, his fist around her tightening slightly. "You've caused a lot of trouble for us in the past. Now, I wonder what the Autobots would be willing to give me in exchange for you – but in the long run maybe it would be better to get rid of you, wouldn't it?"

Once Carly would have found words of defiance, once she would have challenged him to just crush her – but now she couldn't, for fear that he might actually do it and now she desperately clung to every last second of life. Did growing up always mean no longer being fearless?

"Oh, the _great _and _glorious _Megatron can't even handle one little femme squishy?" Starscream dropped out of the sky in front of Megatron, his usual sneer plastered on his face. "That's pathetic, even for you, _Supreme _Leader."

Starscream strutted forward and Carly's world spun out of control, a mess of gray metal blue hands and wings. When everything settled she found herself cupped in Starscream's hand. "Not to mention stupid. The Autobots might be foolish and soft, but killing one of their pets is the surest way to get Prime to kill you."

"And you yourself are soft, saving a lowly organic."

Starscream laughed. "I'm saving my own aft – and maybe I want a pet, and she's as good as any. The Autobots probably already trained her."

Once Carly would have fought against being called a pet, once she could have shouted at them to stop talking about her like she was an object. Once she would have been assured enough that she was invincible to say those things.

Carly closed her hands into fists and dug her fingers into her palms. How had she gotten here, anyway? These things always happened so fast.

Megatron led an attack on Chip's laboratory, where Carly, unlucky enough to be visiting at that time, chose to test out one of Wheeljack's human-sized experimental explosives – big mistake. It wasn't meant for use on Cybertronians and the most that happened was Megatron, smoking from a scorch mark on his leg, snatched up this insolent human and took off, leaving Soundwave in charge of the raid. When he got out of range of the lab – and therefore of the Autobot counterattack – he recognized Carly as the same human who tried to blow up the _Nemesis _on her first day of ever knowing the Autobots, and therefore he now decided that it benefited the Decepticon cause to have her squashed down to slag.

And as it happened, Starscream now decided to _save her._

Megatron extended his hand towards Starscream and, emphasizing every word, ordered, "Give me the organic." In response, Starscream flinched backwards and curled his other hand around in front of Carly, as though shielding her from Megatron. Starscream? Protecting her? Why?

A mechanical shriek filled the air, almost like a bird – and bird it was. Lazerbeak swooped down out of the sky and in one swift moment Starscream moved his hand away and the cassette scooped Carly up in its metal talons. She couldn't find the voice to scream, or maybe she did and she just couldn't hear it over Megatron's roar of anger as Lazerbeak, ignoring the gesture of "hand over the human," rose up higher in the air and away from the Decepticon leader. Immediately after came the sound of jet engines as Starscream, cowardly and wise, fled the scene.

Faintly, Carly heard the sound of gunfire – the Autobots had found Megatron, then? Maybe they followed Lazerbeak – if only they were just a bit quicker, but at least they stopped Megatron from following Lazerbeak, who clearly wasn't doing anything that Megatron wanted it to do. She wondered if Lazerbeak was more than just a drone – if it had a mind of its own, like Rumble and Frenzy, and just couldn't talk, like Ravage.

Lazerbeak descended on a grassy hillside far away from the raging battle. Gently it deposited Carly on the ground and hopped backwards to give her space. As she stood stunned by the turn of events, it looked around itself and plucked up a dandelion to place it at her feet.

So Lazerbeak did have a mind of its own; giving flowers to humans wouldn't be part of a Decepticon drone's programming. In general, Decepticons and flowers did not mix, even if the flower was technically a weed.

Carly picked up the dandelion and twirled it around between her fingers, looking up at the huge mechanical bird. Its optics met her eyes, calmly waiting like it wanted her to do something first. "What are you doing?" she finally asked, not expecting an understandable response and not getting anything except an unintelligible loud squawk.

Lazerbeak launched itself up into the air and darted off, back in the direction of the faraway battle. Carly sank to the ground, her legs trembling, one question running through her mind: what all even happened?

When the first Autobot arrived at Carly's location (Sideswipe, thanks to his desire to attempt jet judo on a flying cassette, which along with his jetpack propelled him in pursuit of Lazerbeak), she still hadn't managed to answer that question.

She doubted anyone ever would.

* * *

12. Meeting

"Daniel!" Carly shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth. "Daniel!"

Parents, Carly used to think, were supposed to believe that their child was the cutest, the smartest, in general the best. She thought Daniel was an idiot. Maybe all children acted this way – taking it as a challenge to sneak out when that was the most dangerous thing that could be done at this moment – but Carly never spent much time around children before and she'd also thought that this type of defiance and rebellion waited until the teenage years to break loose. Daniel was four and an idiot.

Two days after Megatron's raid on Chip's laboratory and failed kidnapping of Carly, the Autobots were paranoid. Ironhide acted more like Red Alert than Red Alert did, which was saying a lot since Red had been in full-fritz mode since the attack. Prowl for his part couldn't see how Megatron holding a personal vendetta against Carly made any sense. Jazz challenged him to name a time that the things Megatron did were logical – Prowl could probably have conjured up an answer had Silverbolt not been passing by at that exact moment to remind everyone within hearing range of the Giant Purple Griffin, immediately and completely shutting down any argument that Megatron might possess a bit of sanity. Optimus ended all of the other discussions (except Bluestreak's speculation with Fireflight on the actual purpose to the Giant Purple Griffin) by saying that they couldn't afford to take chances.

So naturally, Daniel decided to take a chance and therefore prove that he was an idiot.

The list of all of the brilliant ideas Carly ever had did not include this one. The Autobots, all preoccupied with the looming Decepticon threat, didn't realize that Daniel was missing. Carly couldn't find any off-duty 'bots to lend her a hand and once she ascertained that Daniel wasn't lurking in any of his usual hiding places inside the _Ark, _she went outside alone and hoped that he hadn't gone far.

Maybe she was an idiot, too.

Circumstances confirmed that this was an idiotic plan when something huge and dark plummeted out of the sky, kicking up a cloud of dust when it landed some thousand feet away from Carly. She froze for a moment, ready to turn and get the Autobots (who surely could be interested in giant objects falling from the sky) when in the distance the tiny figure that was the reason for Carly's search and the source of her exasperation popped out of a gully and ran towards the crash site.

"Daniel!" she shouted, but idiots were idiots and didn't hear, and like an idiot she sprinted after him, desperately pleading with the universe and Primus and whatever that this crashlanded thing wasn't a Decepticon. The thought of what she would do if it was didn't even give her pause –adrenaline and motherly instincts (she didn't know she had those) still could make her feel invincible.

Carly stopped dead about a hundred feet away. It was a Decepticon; Soundwave, to be specific. And in front of him stood Daniel, inching closer and closer. Carly set off at a run again. "Daniel, that's a Decepticon, get away from him!"

She reached her son and grabbed up, pulling him away from Soundwave. Truthfully, the Decepticon, sprawled on his chest across the ground, didn't look like much of a threat, but where there was one there was always more, especially in the case of Soundwave and his cassettes. "A 'Con?" Daniel repeated. "Mom, if he's a bad guy, why'd the big gray bad guy shoot him out of the sky?"

Big… gray… Megatron? _Megatron _shooting Soundwave? Even Daniel couldn't confuse one of the Autobot's fliers for Megatron – so then…

Carly set Daniel back down on the ground behind her and cautiously took a few steps toward Soundwave. Now that she was looking for injuries, she easily saw the blast marks on the dark blue paint and the exposed circuitry on his back. She'd watched Optimus being repaired following a confrontation with Megatron enough times to know that the fusion cannon made a distinctive mark – the same exact pattern that Soundwave had scorched into his body.

The Decepticon slowly shifted and Carly jumped backwards, pushing Daniel behind her. Soundwave pushed himself up onto his side and tried to lift himself up further, but his arms couldn't support him and he thudded down onto his back. The compartment on his chest where the cassettes were stored was completely shattered, leaking energon and smoking and sparking. His visor pulsed faintly, bright for an instant before fading out for a few seconds and then brightening again. Carly thought of Daniel when he was tired, how his eyes would keep closing automatically, only for him to snap them back open a moment later. Given Soundwave's condition, what he was flitting between didn't seem to be so much "awake or asleep" and more along the lines of "alive or dead."

"_Did _Megatron attack you?" Carly asked quietly, knowing that this question could be enough to send this emotionless Decepticon into a rage against the mere insinuation that he could do something disloyal enough to result in Megatron attempting to kill him – normally, anyway.

She was surprised that Soundwave, slagged as he looked, even acknowledged her question, especially since a human asked it. More surprising was his answer. "Affirmative."

Carly's decision was the one that only an idiot would make – she had to admit that her son came by it naturally. "Daniel, you know where the _Ark _is?" He nodded solemnly, picking up on the seriousness of the situation, and pointed in the direction of the Autobots' base. "I want you to run back there and get… get Ratchet. And Optimus. Jazz and Prowl and – get everyone you can find out here _now." _

Daniel turned and ran off back towards the _Ark. _Carly's stomach clenched uncomfortably as she watched him go, her mind speeding through everything that could possibly happen to him between here and the ship. When she looked back at Soundwave, she saw that his visor had gone dark. "Soundwave?" she asked, the name and the tone of concern that she used with it rolling strangely off of her tongue. The Decepticon's visor lit up. "Soundwave, why did Megatron attack you?"

"Actions: treasonous. Megatron: displeased."

"You? Betraying Megatron?" Carly couldn't see Daniel anymore. She walked back over to Soundwave, eyes wandering along his injuries. "What…"

Lazerbeak shoved its way to the forefront of her mind, rescuing her from Megatron and Starscream, leaving her a dandelion. "Lazerbeak saved me," she said. "Two days ago. The raid. That's what Megatron saw as treasonous, wasn't it?"

"Lazerbeak's actions: on my orders. His actions: treasonous. Mine: treasonous."

"Megatron displeased?" Carly guessed. She sat down on the ground next to Soundwave – still marveling at her lack of fear – and his head turned just a fraction to look at her. "Why, though? That's what I don't get."

"Emotions: weakness. Emotions: unable to be deleted."

"You've tried?"

"Affirmative."

"Huh. The twins always say that Prowl deleted hisemotions. Guess that's not true." Carly leaned back on her hands, still watching Soundwave's flickering visor. "So, emotions. You felt bad for a poor pathetic captive squishy, just like Starscream?"

"Starscream: irrelevant to the situation. My emotional response: contains lack of pity. You: not pathetic."

Because the fact that she was having a conversation with a nearly-offlined Decepticon needed to get stranger. "Don't all Decepticons think humans are pathetic?"

"Emotions: incomprehensible. Explanation as to mine: nonexistent."

"You… I'm sorry, I'm not following." Did she just apologize to a Decepticon? Yes, she just apologized to a Decepticon who just told her that he didn't consider her pathetic. "Strange" could not begin to describe this.

"You: received roses over past stellar cycles."

Carly couldn't decide if she was confused or freaked out now. "How – _why _do you know about those?"

"Roses: delivered by Lazerbeak. My intention: convey undeletable emotions."

What was that about Decepticons and flowers? Oh, right. They didn't mix.

"Megatron: considers affection towards humans treasonous."

Of all ways for the mystery of her old stalker to be unraveled, this was not anything that she expected.

"I… you… what?" There was only one answer to this question that made sense, except for the part where it didn't make sense. "You're… you're in love with me?"

"Affirmative."

Carly's arms slid out from underneath her and she flopped out spread-eagled on her back, staring up at the clouds littering the blue sky. All of the clouds looked like roses. "Well."

Silence.

"Soundwave?" No response. Carly pushed herself up into a sitting position again. Soundwave's visor was still flickering, but only faintly, and the periods when it went dark became longer and longer. "Soundwave? You still here?"

"Present condition: impossible to move in." Soundwave's voice started out weaker and trailed away to almost nothing by the end of his sentence.

"It's not meant literally, it's just how humans speak." Carly stood up as Soundwave's visor went dark again. "Thank you – er, the roses were a little creepy, but thank you for saving my life. I can't thank you enough for that, really." A flash of red, so quick that Carly just might have imagined that. "Soundwave?" No response. She quashed all of her dignity somewhere down into the pit of her stomach and quickly kissed his faceplate.

Instead of the telltale flickers of red that were the last sign of life, Carly watched as Soundwave's body faded to a dull, ashen gray. "So Megatron's most loyal Decepticon dies for a human, huh?"

Somewhere nearby there came the rumble of engines. Carly turned away from Soundwave and walked in the direction of the approaching Autobots. Ironhide's familiar red form led the charge, closely followed by Optimus and Ratchet. Ironhide transformed and ran over to her, pulling his gun out of subspace as he moved. "Ya okay?" Carly nodded. "What happened?"

"Soundwave," she said, pointing back at the body. The Autobots all stared, but she couldn't bring herself to look at him again. "He's dead. Megatron shot him down."

"Why?" Optimus asked, and the other Autobots behind him looked at each other in confusion.

"Why would Megatron kill his most loyal 'Con?" Ratchet asked.

Carly shook her head. "I don't know."

_Because he loved me. _


End file.
